Peter's was handsome enough
to excite the emulation of the canons of the cathedral, for the contract
made with Maestro Mariotto--who was nicknamed Torzuolo--specifies that
the work is to be entirely of walnut wood, after the fashion of the
sacristy at St. Peter's, and is to be executed "in the manner of a
good, loyal and expert master." It is to be all done by his own hand, or
at least in his presence and under his superintendence. The work is to
be completed in one year, and the canons are to pay for it at the rate
of ten florins every square braccio, Florentine measure. This was in
1494; and it will here again be observed that the price, as compared
with that to be paid to Maestro Stefano by the monks of St. Peter's for
their choir, even fully allowing for the greater richness of the latter,
indicates the very rapid alteration in the value of money which took
place at the beginning of the sixteenth century. But the canons, it
would seem, were very careful hands at a bargain, for we find that it is
provided in the contract that when the work shall have been completed it
shall be examined by two experts, and that if it shall be found to be
worth less than the price named, Maestro Torzuolo shall receive so much
less; but that if it shall be found by the said experts and appraisers
to be worth more, the maestro shall stand to his bargain and not receive
more than the price named--an agreement which is frequently found in the
contracts made about that period.
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